Fic: Borrowed Time (1/11)
Title: Borrowed Time (Part 1 of 11)
Author: lemon_pencil
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Donna
Disclaimer: Rusty is fail, so I'm taking over. But they're not mine, I'm afraid.
Warnings/Spoilers: Series 4; Planet of the Dead.
Word Count: About 1,500
Summary: Donna wants to go on one last adventure before it's too late...
Author's notes: Set a little bit after Planet of the Dead, but before The Waters of Mars and The End of Time - they didn't happen, okay? Been a very long time since I posted fic! *twitches*
The Doctor leaned heavily against the TARDIS console, gazing into the glowing Time Rotor at the centre. He looked around the domed room and closed his eyes, remembering when, a whole year ago, it had been full of noise and laughter and people. When they had flown the Earth across the galaxy, the nine of them, before -
No. That was too painful. Don’t go there, he silently told himself. What good can come of it? He knew what Donna would say if she could see him now, thinking about her all the time and torturing himself with every memory because it hurt so much to remember the face of the friend he’d lost forever. The friend who now didn’t - couldn’t - ever return the gesture by even thinking of him for a second. Right now she’d tell him to snap out of it and pull himself together, and probably punctuate this command with a sharp slap to bring him to his senses. But he wasn’t about to put her out of his thoughts; he had to remember her, and the times they shared, because who else could? Who else could hold the shining image of her at her very best - marvellous, wonderful, brilliant - now that it had faded from her mind?
“If there was only a way that I could super-reverse the synapse erasion stimulation by a process of selective sensory intrusion,” he said aloud. He frowned. “Try saying that with a lisp -”
He looked around the empty TARDIS, forgetting for a moment that there was no Donna to grin back at him and roll her eyes. He swallowed. He’d been over the possibilities a thousand times and there was simply no other way he could have saved her without taking the memories, and it killed him. Even though it had to be done, the guilt gnawed at him every day.
One time he’d walked down her street - okay, he’d done it several times, but this time he’d got lucky - and she’d been walking the other way. As they passed, he’d flashed her a small smile, and she’d distractedly smiled back before walking on. He’d turned around and just stared after her as she got further away, battling with the irrational voices in his head that were telling him to run after her and sweep her up in his arms and just hold on and let the rest of the universe be damned, forever. But of course, eventually he’d just walked listlessly back to the TARDIS and spent the evening sitting gazing into space. A year was a long time when you were alone.
Not that he had to be alone. He’d chosen this. He could have taken Christina with him, of course, and begun the process of moving on and healing. With another person for company, it was much harder to dwell on things and work yourself into a lethargic cloud of gloom; he’d learnt that with Martha. Without her, he was pretty sure he’d have spent a lot longer moping about and missing Rose. So it was entirely his own fault that he hadn’t learnt from that this time and found somebody to fill the emptiness.
He sighed loudly, flopped onto the jump seat and moodily switched on the TARDIS screen. Pointing the sonic screwdriver at it, he tuned it to receive a television signal, if only to distract him from his own mind. He was currently parked down a side street of London - secretly, though he’d never admit it, he liked to feel that Donna was near him - and the News At Ten flashed up onto the screen. He decided a bit of doom and gloom in whatever was currently happening in Britain was fairly appropriate for his present mindset, so he settled to watch it.
Man killed in bank hold-up… major company goes into administration… bomb scare at Heathrow… unusual behaviour reported in a growing number of people across the country - wait, what was that? That sounded far more his sort of thing. He listened more carefully.
“We’re having more reports by the day, coming in from all over the country and describing this strange phenomenon,” said the newsreader, shuffling his papers. “Anthony joins us now from London. Anthony, what can you tell us about what’s been going on?”
“Well, it’s a peculiar business, Roy,” said the suit-clad man, his face set in a serious expression. “There have been one hundred and twenty four cases so far all across England, but in specific areas - people acting in what’s been described as a savage manner. They don’t recognise friends and family; they seem to have been reduced to the basic functions of eating, sleeping and attempting to mate and they’re prepared to turn violent to get what they want. There has been one death so far: a police officer who broke loose with a gun, and had to be stopped for public safety. The most bizarre thing is that all of the known victims have displayed a faint greenish glow to their skin. Scientists are currently baffled as to what is causing these symptoms.”
The Doctor’s interest was stirred. Yet he couldn’t quite muster up his usual zeal for a crisis. Before now, if this had happened, he’d have been out there immediately investigating with a sort of eager enthusiasm entirely inappropriate for an emergency. Yes, he felt at least some desire to find out more, but he couldn’t quite shake off a sense of weariness. Things weren’t quite as exciting without someone else to share them with.
Suddenly, his thoughts were pierced by a startling sound that echoed around the TARDIS. For a second, he was puzzled, and then he realised. It was a phone ringing. More specifically Martha’s, which he seemed to have adopted now as his own. His eyebrows furrowed, and he raced to the other side of the console and snatched it up.
“Hello?”
“Doctor, is that you? Oh God I’m glad to hear your voice,” said the familiar tones of somebody he knew it was not a good sign to be contacted by. “It’s Wilf.”
“Wilf? What’s wrong?” he asked, panicking. He knew, even without an explanation, why the grandfather of the woman he’d thought of so much this past year was calling him. “It’s Donna, isn’t it? Wilf, tell me what’s happened!”
There was a sniff at the other end.
“Doctor, she’s remembering,” Wilf said, his words chilling the Doctor. “She woke up this morning with this awful headache, and it’s got worse and worse. She told me she was dreaming last night about men in blue boxes and things that don’t make sense to her. You’ve got to help, Doctor. That’s my Donna. You said if - if she -” The emotion in his voice was evident.
The Doctor stared in silence at the floor for a few moments before replying in a hollow tone. “Wilf… there’s nothing I can do. I’ve been over it so many times. There’s nothing else I can do. If the memory wipe hasn’t worked, I don’t know what else there is. I can’t wipe her mind again; it would damage it permanently. I’m… I’m sorry.” He held the phone away from him for a second so that Wilf wouldn’t hear him, and choked back a sob.
When he put the receiver to his ear again, Wilf’s tone was desperate. “ But you’re… you’re the Doctor! She told me - before it all happened - she told me she’d trust you with her life! Please, you’ve got to try.”
“I’ll come,” said the Doctor, heavily. “But I can’t promise anything, you have to understand that. The only thing I can do is suspend the degeneration of her mind, for…” he paused, trying to work it out. “I’d say a day maximum. Then she’ll… if I don’t find a solution, she’ll…” He couldn’t say it. “But I’ll be there, right away.”
He ended the call and sunk to the floor, burying his face in his hands. He was thankful that he had a time machine, because he knew he couldn’t face the journey right away. He was used to feeling helpless in the face of the universe, and what it could throw at him, and how it could get itself into peril so very easily, but there was usually some glimmer of hope. Now, he couldn’t see any possible way out. Donna was going to die and it was entirely his fault. The tear that rolled down his face and onto the grating underneath him faintly echoed metallically in the silence and stillness.
Shaking, he stood up once more and entered the coordinates for Chiswick into the console. The Doctor had done a lot of running away in his life, and part of him wanted to run away right now, and keep running and running and never letting reality catch up with him. But it wasn’t like that was ever really an option. There was just one choice he could make. Go to her. And watch her slip away from him for good.
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